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Here's a picture of the new internal structure
(October 2001). I'm using a flat 1/4" aluminum plate as a mounting base for the
electronics. The batteries will be velcroed to the bottom of this plate. You can see the new Axis computer sitting here. This machine has a 100 MIPS custom processor, runs Linux natively, has an ethernet port, and I will be porting a headless Squeak VM to it over the next month or so... |
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Here's another view, where you can see the
machine screws holding the circular end-plate to the main chassis. I drilled and tapped
the holes into the end of the 1/4" thick plate. The small hole you can see in the
center of the end-plate is what I used to hold the plate on the lathe to turn it to size. I am working on a new design for my sensors and micro-controllers board, which will go in front of the Axis board. This new design has a pair of stacked 3" x 4" boards, which will have 3 PIC micro-controllers onboard, as well as the usual sensors and what-not. I am using completely new hardware -- there will be almost nothing in common in terms of sensors & electronics between the old design and the new one. |
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Here's a picture of the internal structure of the new transparent shell. The circuit board is mounted, and I must say it is a drastic improvement being able to see inside the sub... The Helio is sitting on top of the battery pack, which is sitting on top of the two smaller rods at the bottom. The gray cylinder at the top-right of the picture is one of two pieces of solid 4" PVC rod that will be machined to form the end caps of this shell. I will be using o-rings around the end-caps to seal the whole thing. |
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Here's a lower view, where you can see the side of the Helio, and the battery packs underneath. |
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Here's a picture of the new thruster shroud. I have one made, and will be making the other one pretty soon. |
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And here's a back view of the shroud. |
Here's the frond endcap, sitting on the lathe, with the first machining cut already taken. |
Here's the front end-cap again, being machined on the milling machine with a boring tool. I'm cutting the hole that the camera tube will fit into. |
Here's the rear end cap, attached to the lathe. It's a 4" diameter piece of solid PVC rod, 2" long. I had a machine shop cut it to this size, and drill a 1/2" hole down the middle so I could mount it on my Sherline. |
Here's the rear end cap, almost done, still attached to the lathe. I have to wait to machine off the mounting posts until I've cut the o-ring grooves, which I will do as soon as I get the o-ring kit from Small Parts Inc. |
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And finally, both end caps, attached to the shell, with the camera tube in place. Once I machine off the spots where the 1/2" bolt went through the rear end cap, I'll need to plug the hole, which I'll do with a piece of Delrin or something like that. This tube (and the one in the top two pictures) isn't the actual shell I'll be using, its the spare piece I have. I'm trying to use this one for all the development work, and I'll use the real one once everything is ready for final assembly. This development tube, which is 11" long, is 2" shorter than the real one. |
Here's my Sherline lathe. I bought it from School Projects... It is an amazing machine. |
This is another image of the lathe, converted to do milling with the vertical milling column. |
